The City Review can now reveal that the agreement between the government and Ezra Construction Company to suspend power cut off excluded the distributor, making Juba vulnerable to a wave of power outage if no remedial action is taken.

A senior official of Juba Electricity Distribution Cooperation (JEDCO) anonymously told the City Review on Tuesday, January 12, that the company got the information about power continuity on media.

“You know we buy power in large quantity from Ezra and sale it to the consumers in SSP. Then the money is deposited into the bank. So, according to the agreement it is the responsibility of the government to collect the money and exchange it into dollars.”

“Because the agreement is in dollars and we import materials using dollars monthly and the government failed to do that. But we just heard the government in the news saying that they have agreed on the payment modality and were ready to process the payment and we do not know how the agreement was reached,” the official said.

On Sunday last week, JEDCO sent consumers into panic mode when it issued a warning to the public that it would cut off the power supply in Juba over government’s failure to respect the agreement.

According to the senior JEDCO official, the agreement was signed was in dollars and the government was to avail it for the maintenance of the power plant. 

However, just a day before the planned power halt went into effect on Tuesday January 12, 2021, the government announced the continuity in power supply saying the agreement had already been reached to keep electricity flowing.

Efforts to reach the Minister of Energy and Dam Peter Morcelo on phone for comment went unanswered.

However, the Operation Manager of Ezra Company declined to clarify what exactly transpired despite The City Review’s several unsuccessful attempts.

According to the JEDCO official, the company has connected over 15 thousand households and close to 50 thousand businesses in capital, Juba as well as government institutions.

The City Review was unable to find out how much the government owes Ezra and for how long they dollars have not been paid.